The Reel Film concept and site was conceived in 2007 upon my first direct exposure to the Super 8mm film format. As a photographer enchanted with film, Super 8 struck an immediate chord with me when I stumbled across an old camera in the Surry Hills markets one Saturday morning whilst on holiday in Sydney. Entranced with the possibilities I bought the camera on assurance that, yes indeed, film was still produced and available, and $20 later – following a long but ultimately fruitful search through the city for a cartridge of film (costing more than the camera itself) – I was naively yet delightedly pointing the camera at arguably some of the best subject matter ever conceived for the Super 8 format (in the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge) on an inconceivably blue day on a Harbour jaunt with my wife to South Head.
Sydney Harbour then, perhaps second only to the wedding as the ultimate Super 8mm film subject. For what is more synonymous with and more tied to the epitome of home movie technology in the collective consciousness (prior to its untimely demise at the hands of the home video explosion in the early 1980s) than the wedding?
My own initial fascination lay in the personal possibilities which that second-hand camera presented. Long fascinated with photography and the characteristics of film (along with the film developing and printing process) the notion of an accessible means of home filmmaking inspired me as much as I imagine any proud new owner of a camera was inspired by the possibilities Super 8 presented during its heyday.
The notion of recording family events, in motion, as moving photographs was irresistible. And so I joined past film fanatical legions into the all-consuming world of home movie making. From there the possibilities and my passion for the format only grew.
To see moments captured only weeks earlier on film suddenly brought to life again on a projector screen (through a Trade me-purchased projector) or on a TV screen (via a digital frame-by-frame transfer) was aesthetically compelling, delightful and mesmerising. My passion for the possibilities was fuelled further by the results I was achieving in editing the images (silent by their nature) to a musical soundtrack. Suddenly the magic of filmmaking was revealed to me in a way which also revealed the answer to why filmmaking is considered such an all-consuming and compelling endeavour, and why the Super 8mm format represents the epitome of the filmmaking practice at a personal (home/D.I.Y.) level prior to the moment when the eminently more affordable video rendered it essentially obsolete in the 1980s.
Film looks and feels so good, so much warmer and more lovely than video (no matter how high the video definition), and film brings its own physical qualities to the final results in ways video inherently strives to eliminate. Film grain, unique to each frame, adds an additional dimension, appearing to swim and animate the action further (this is particularly so with a digital frame-by-frame transfer which tends to highlight the film’s qualities and unique imperfections). The colour or black & white qualities of the many varieties of available Super 8 film stocks themselves offer vibrant and compelling variations to the action. Then there’s the inadvertent grit, hair, exposure swells, sun flare and jump cuts which all ultimately (and contrarily!) add to the home movie experience rather than detract from it – and also tend to further inform and tune our collective responses to the sweetness and nostalgia inherent in Super 8.
Film’s limits offer further possibilities. Super 8 film is delivered via a 50 foot reel of 8mm film looped inside a cartridge which you slot inside a camera in much the same way as you might pop (or once have popped) a cassette into a tape deck. 50 feet of film shot at 18 frames per second (the Super 8 standard) offers about 3 minutes 20 seconds of images (and at 24 frames per second – the motion picture standard – offers about 2 minutes 30 seconds). This means that when filming you tend to do so from a photographic perspective (focussing, correctly exposing, and imagining the footage you are about to capture before you do) keeping in mind that most ‘shots’ don’t need to run for more than 8 seconds or so (particularly when you only have three and a half minutes of film to play with in each cartridge).
The size of the Super 8mm frame itself (the smallest possible, actually only about 5mm across diagonally) tends to squeeze certain colour ranges so the blues, greens and reds in particular ‘pop’ like Christmas crackers – and so the sky, or breaking waves or the sudden shock of a red rose look like they’ve leapt out of a Van Gogh painting.
It’s the natural, impressionistic nature of film (as opposed to the defining, literal ambitions of video) which is perhaps the most compelling argument for film over video in the recording of one’s wedding for posterity. Film by its nature imbues its images with an inherent, unmistakeable romance, whereas video by its own dedication to higher definition – no matter how good the shot itself is – tends to strip away the romance of the moment from our memories via its inherent stringency and dedication to a fidelity analogous to the failings of the CD format in comparison to vinyl.
Simply put film offers what nothing else can, particularly when shot and edited simply, tastefully, creatively and with empathy for the moment or event itself. Film’s imbuing of its subject with a natural warmth and romance complements, triggers and does justice to (rather than replaces) our memories of an event. And it was this realisation which had me suddenly wondering about the possibilities of a film-based, cinematic approach to other people’s events.
I had photographed a number of weddings with results I was proud of (mostly utilising 35mm still film), and the notion of being able to shoot a wedding on Super 8 dawned on me as a wonderful means of marrying my own passion for the format with a subject synonymous with, and ideally suited for ‘home’ filmmaking. The wedding is the quintessential home movie subject, and the black & white mid-20th century home movies of our own pasts, and our collective past (not to mention the Kodachrome-coloured seventies versions of our histories or childhoods) play an ongoing, tangible role in the collective Western consciousness.
The films of the three weddings and the 95bFM ‘Our Class Trip’ event represented in the ‘Films’ section of this site are compelling evidence of the compatibility of our own stories and weddings as subject matter wonderfully worthy of a celluloid treatment and of their reserving for posterity on film.
It was only a few weeks after my wife and I were married that I stumbled across the second hand Sankyo camera I purchased in Sydney. A friend of ours had kindly offered to video our own wedding at the last minute – and as a record we treasure that footage. However, it’s the professional film-based still photography of our wedding which leaves the lasting impression for us, and had I been a convert prior to our own wedding I would have ensured that there was a Super 8 camera loaded with Kodak Ektachrome 64T or black & white Kodak Tri-X rolling during our service. I would have loved the opportunity to see our own moving photographs, and would have relished the opportunity to edit them afterwards to some Louis Armstrong or Duke Ellington.
Josh Hetherington
ReelFilm.co.nz